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Avatar: The Beast Wars, Chapter 11: Kumiho Silver-Fox
Introducing Characters La- The spirit of the ocean Wan Shi Tong- a giant know it all owl with a temper and intense dislike of humans due to their tendency to use his knowledge for destructive ends Kumiho Silver-Fox As Azula slept, she dreamed. The dream was vivid, more vivid than any she had ever had. She was standing atop a hill, watching a furious battle rage in the valley beneath. Beside her stood two red haired men who she knew to be her father and twin brother as well as a small red and tawny fox who she knew to be her younger sister. Yet at the same time, she knew that these people were not her family. Atop another hill across the valley, stood four other figures. Wolves, she thought, although her eyes told her they were human in form. In the valley below, surging out of a forest was an army of horrid hairy beings with six arms and blades that Azula knew with the certainty that comes in dreams to be poison. The word "spiders" flashed across her mind. The six armed beings slammed into the battling armies and suddenly the even battle was a three sided free for all. Suddenly three of the four figures on the opposite hill charged down the hill into the fray while the fourth sprouted immense wings and flew towards the forest the hairy six armed beings were coming from. The three figures who had joined the battle were surging through it towards the things from the forest, killing any of her family's warriors that were unfortunate enough to be in their way. A word from her father sent her and her siblings rushing into the fray. Azula drew and assembled the twin halves of a collapsible bladed staff as she ran, the movements coming to her easily. Even as she finished assembling her weapon, she spun it and crippled an armored wolf man, giving her warrior the momentary advantage to finish him. On she went, dancing between foes, her bladed staff striking out to the left and right like a whirlwind of death, enemies falling around her as though struck by lightning. When she reached the six armed beings' battle line, she began striking out indiscriminately, cutting down foes like blades of grass before a scythe. She caught glimpses of her siblings wielding similar weapons with similar results, and sometimes the leaders of the wolf men through gaps in the mob. One appeared to be unarmed except for his fangs and claws as he spewed flames at his foes, but Azula knew that to be foolishness, nobody would enter such a battle unarmed. Then she was shocked to see a bone sword apparently materialize from thin air in his hand mid swing and decapitate a spider warrior. The wolf man slew three more spider warriors before drawing a second bone sword and wielding the two in tandem as naturally as she did her staff. Suddenly he turned and pointed one of his bone swords at her. It splintered and became a flurry of sharp bone spikes flying straight at her, too fast for even her to dodge or deflect. Time seemed to slow down and she knew death was upon her. Then amazingly, none of the spikes hit her and she felt the ground jump a little. She whirled and saw a huge spider warrior, the biggest she had ever seen, lying on the ground behind her, dead from the wolf man's bone knives. "Thank you," she said quietly, before whirling back into action. The dream shifted many times, always showing her in battle with the wolf man, dueling across what must have been a dozen different settings and times, always evenly matched. When it finally settled, she was perched atop a stone spire which rose above a forest of similar spikes. In the spaces between the stones, a fierce battle was raging. Once again, it was wolf men being pitted against her fox warriors. Once again, she leapt fearlessly into the fray and slew countless enemies as she sprang with impossible agility from pillar to pillar, her feet never touching the ground for more than an instant. She came suddenly to a small clearing filled with nearly a dozen of her warriors. The clearing was almost perfectly circular, and all of her warriors were engaged in a fierce battle with a lone opponent who was obscured from her view by the mass of bodies. As one of her warriors fell, she realized they were losing. Then two more fell in an instant, prompting the others to back away as their foe lashed out quicker than they could retreat and felled three more. She suddenly recognized their foe as the wolf man unleashed a volley of bone spikes that skewered the three warriors left facing him. Azula raised her half of her unassembled bladed staff, which was today serving as dual swords, "Care to fight someone a little closer to your level?" The wolf man smiled beneath his helmet, "It will be a shame to kill one so lovely, but if you insist." He drew his twin bone blades, once again seemingly from the air itself. They flew together, blades flashing. "If you could you would have done it by now!" Azula laughed as she disengaged from their lightning fast exchange with a jump and kick to his chest. The wolf man laughed, "Nice trick. Here's one of mine." He sprang backward and slammed his forearm into a stone spire with such force that it split clean through and toppled towards her. She leapt aside and sprang over the collapsing spire towards him, blades poised to ram through his chest. The wolf man swept her blades apart and away from him with his armored forearms before catching her in his hands, which were each as big as her chest. Specially made for mauling people, Azula thought. Suddenly the wolf man's helmet dissolved away from his face and she realized that not only were his weapons made of bone, his armor was too. Then he shocked her into nearly dropping her blades with a kiss. The shock was so great that Azula woke with a start, her heart hammering. ~ Yue sat on a cloud in the spirit world, the ocean spirit La floating beside her in the form of an immense black koi fish. "What am I going to do La?" she asked sadly as the storm on the horizon began to boil with the fury that always preceded its expansion. La's whiskers coiled in the fishy equivalent of a shrug, "I do not know child of Tue. I am aware of them when they swim, and I can try to stop them, but we could not stop their vanguard, how can we possibly stop their entire army?" Yue sighed sadly and turned her gaze north to her home in the Northern Water Tribe, "We have to do something. Surely someone somewhere knows how." They were silent for a time, then La's whiskers twitched with excitement, "I know someone who might know. Wan Shi Tong! He knows lots of things nobody else knows or remembers." Yue brightened, she knew of Wan Shi Tong and his library, and even better where to find him. She kissed La on his nose, "Thank you! I'll go see him right now!" She waved her hand and appeared in the spirit world outside Wan Shi Tong's library, now entangled in the roots of a massive tree instead of buried in the sands of the Si Wong desert. She proceeded inside, hardly daunted by the library's immense size. She soon found herself in the center of the library, "Wan Shi Tong? Are you here?" There was a whooshing sound and an immense owl landed in front of her lightly, even though something so massive should have made a noise like thunder. The owl leaned in very close and Yue could see her reflection in the flat black eyes, "I am always here. I am Wan Shi Tong, he who knows ten thousand things. Who are you?" "I am Yue, the moon spirit." Wan Shi Tong seemed to frown, "Ridiculous. Tue is the moon spirit." Yue frowned, "Tue was killed over a year ago. I'm the new moon spirit." Wan Shi Tong reared back, "What?! Was she killed by a fire bender?" "Yes," Yue said, slightly bewildered. Wan Shi Tong threw back his head, spread his wings and screeched. It was a terrible sound of tremendous volume that made Yue cover her ears with her hands. Wan Shi Tong folded his wings back to his side, and the flat black eyes glittered with rage, "A curse upon the fire benders for so abusing the knowledge here!" Yue made a slight face, "Well, the firebender that did it was dragged into the spirit world by La and thrown into the fog of Lost Souls as punishment." Wan Shi Tong squawked with approval, "A fate no less than he deserves. On his way out he torched an entire section of my library. The Avatar stealing information from me to use as a weapon was the last straw, but that was the next to last one." Yue was shocked by the owl's words. Maybe he wouldn't be so eager to help. Then the owl leaned forward, "Surely you are not here to steal information to use as a weapon." Yue thought quickly, "Oh no, I am simply curious to know about something!" Wan Shi Tong leaned back a little, "What are you curious about?" "Well there's this storm, it's covering so much, and it never lifts, so it's completely obscuring my view of the world between the western coast of the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. I want to know what's under there, so I came to see if you knew." Wan Shi Tong laughed, "You are a very good liar new moon spirit. You wish to aid the humans in the war that is coming." "What war?" Yue asked. "The Kimarehto are expanding their empire. They will wage war against the Fire Nation, and they will win," Wan Shi Tong said flatly. "Then they will move on to the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes, and they will win there as well. Their commander Lycaon Stone-Heart the Destroyer has never been defeated and is nigh immortal, as are his siblings and allies." Yue gulped, "Why do they call him the destroyer?" "Because," Wan Shi Tong said, "He ended the civil war that the Kimarehto were embroiled in for nearly fifty years by single-handedly slaughtering an entire tribe of Kimarehto. Nearly a hundred thousand Kimarehto, even the youngest and weakest as dangerous as any ordinary human bender, fell at his hands over the course of one night." Yue's eyes widened at the thought of such slaughter, "Why?" "Because," Wan Shi Tong replied, "They ambushed and killed his fiancé, Kumiho Silver-Fox, and slaughtered her entire clan. Between Lycaon's assault and the extermination of the Fox Clan, nearly one-sixth of the entire population of Kimar was killed in two days." Yue trembled slightly, "Can't they be stopped?" "No," Wan Shi Tong replied flatly, "No force can stop the armies of Kimar. They cannot be defeated in battle. None except one of their own can kill them, and they can reincarnate just like the Avatar." Yue's heart skipped a beat, "What? How?!" Wan Shi Tong blinked slowly, "Kimarehto are chaotic spirits clothed in mortal flesh. They lose their memory when they reincarnate, and sometimes they do not reincarnate immediately, but they always do, and even if they are born to non-Kimarehto parents they will have far beyond ordinary abilities. Greater bending prowess, increased agility and strength, a natural aptitude for combat because they subconsciously remember the centuries they have spent fighting, and when they are killed, they reincarnate, and often return to the battle field to fight once again." Yue gulped, "Then how do my people survive?" Wan Shi Tong blinked very slowly and then, "I would suggest surrendering. The only foes Kimarehto will even consider peace with are those they consider worthy foes, and the only foes they have ever considered worthy, are each other. They will however take many, many slaves. The leaders will be symbolically devoured, but the civilians will be allowed to live. It would take the occurrence of something of nearly impossible odds to stop them." "What?" Yue asked. "Their leaders, Lycaon Stone-Heart and his brother, Kyvon Snow-Heart, would have to agree to peace, and the only peace they and their predecessors have ever agreed to other than surrender or extermination, is a treaty through marriage, and this has only happened once in the past two hundred years, when Lycaon Stone-Heart fell in love with Kumiho Silver-Fox." "Oh," Yue said quietly. [http://cacklingshadowschatshack.wikia.com/wiki/Avatar_the_Beast_Wars,_Ch_12_The_Bloodbender Next Chapter 12-The Blood Bender]